Berkeley Inn

Location: Berkeley, CA
Developer: Sudha Patel
Completion: 2007

The Berkeley Inn occupies a prime corner lot in downtown Berkeley. It replaces an existing one-story, thirteen-room motel. The new motel is a three-story, 27-guest-room motel with an owner’s unit, lobby, and parking lot. A wood and metal clad canopy moves horizontally and vertically across the façade tracking the movement from guestrooms to the reception area. The street facing walls are double the thickness of standard walls, providing extra sound insulation and a deep recess at the windows. Deep wood trim frames the windows, some extend out over the sidewalk, providing a patterned texture to the elevation. Aluminum grill is used at the stair towers, driveway and at the first floor as a reflection/ reaction to the vertical and horizontal circulation occurring at these points.